The early beginnings

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The beginning of what is considered the modern indie film scene, is often attributed to the rise of “American New Wave” and the following establishing of a “New Hollywood” a movement that started in the early 1950s and still has its roots in modern indie films. The directors of the first American New Wave were far away from the glamour and genre of the studio run established Hollywood, starting out in New York. The main interest of these new filmmakers was to move away from established genre conventions and instead depict the drama of real human life, similar to the dogma 95 movement. However, the American New Wave planned to focus less on film criticism and rather base their work on their own artistic freedom, drawing inspiration from photography and dance. As a result the movies made by this movement were rather experimental, going past conventions set by the movie and television industry of the time. After becoming more organized, 23 of these new filmmakers got together, on the 28^th September 1960, to issue their first official statement as “The New American Cinema Group” in the Film Culture magazine. Their main ideologies outlined in this statement are to form a cinema of “personal expression” further outlining their move away from Hollywood. They also believe that a film should be made without the interruption of studios, investors or distributors, condemning the way some distributors censor controversial films. This paves the way to a film industry where the director is the only one with creative control.